Born on February 19th, 1971, in Fort Washington, Maryland, Jeff Kinney is an American author who is famous for the publishing of the famous series of novels, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Kinney, at first, was a video game producer and aspired to be newspaper cartoonist since his obsession was online animation. He soon found himself making his own cartoons while making the series of books. He now lives in Plainville, Massachusetts, where he still continues to write books after being an author for about 17 years.

Jeff Kinney is known for his famous series of books, The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, his first one being the most popular. This book took Kinney 8 years to write and was finally published on April 1st, 2007. This is surprising due to the fact that this book is only 221 pages long with pictures. However, this book quickly grabbed the attention of readers because of its relatable story and humor about growing up. In all, this series is about a boy named “Greg Heffley” who struggles with the pressure of growing up and goes through waves of problems just so he could fit in. As this sounds sad, Kinney actually uses this character to be comical and to make young readers laugh while they relate and connect to the book.

In the first book, Greg Heffley expresses his goals and his attitude upon bumping up to middle school. He exemplifies this by saying,

“I'll be famous one day, but for now I'm stuck in middle school with a bunch of morons."

Greg, as can be told by the quote, expresses his confidence going into middle school and sees the people around him in a lower class. His goals are to be well-known around the school. However this will back fire as he finds himself in a predicament where it doesn’t make it easy for him to make friends.

“It’s not easy to stay popular in middle school because there are so many traps you can fall into.”

Greg finds himself being cocky and underestimates how life has changed for him ever since joining middle school.

Jeff Kinney, aside from writing Diary of a Wimpy Kid, revolutionized children’s and teenagers literature. He promoted a generation of children and teenagers to start reading for fun. He is significant in being an American author especially because of his connection to the readers. He uses his past experiences with school and applies them to his books. Not only does he connect to the readers within the books that he writes, he allows himself to communicate via email, mail and by meeting him local bookstores. Unlike other authors that have pictures with their books, Kinney does not write using a pen or pencil at all. He only types and uses digital platforms. Through all of his work, he has won numerous awards and has impacted the youth on generational level.

This author is significant to me because I grew up reading and even watching the movies of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I don’t read a lot but I think he definitely deserves all the recognition that he gets because he influenced me to read more of his books. I loved reading his books because at the time, it was relatable and super comical. I think however today, I wouldn’t find it as amusing as it was before just because I can’t relate to the book as much anymore. But i would definitely recommend someone like my brother to read his books.

My essential question is why is social status important, and this falls under the societal category. I chose this question because he uses his past experiences and problems with fitting in and he applies it to his books. Jeff Kinney writes about social classes and he puts the characters Greg and Rowley in a lower class than the other people at school. Other people look down on him and treat them unfairly because of how they act or how many friends they have. In conclusion, yes, social status does matter.

And that’s it to wrap it up